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‘Too political’ RSPCA faces ruin, says deputy leader

The country’s oldest animal charity risks scaring away commercial partners and driving traditional supporters to write it out of their wills

Dominic Kennedy

September 14 2013, 1:01am, The Times

The RSPCA has provoked controversy with its campaigningTimes photographer Jack Hill

The RSPCA could be gone in ten years, according to a devastating confidential assessment by the charity’s second-in-command.

The country’s oldest animal charity risks scaring away commercial partners and driving traditional supporters to write it out of their wills if it is seen as too political, he says.

The RSPCA has provoked controversy in the past year with its aggressive campaigning against the badger cull and zealous prosecutions for hunting.

Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, has refused to follow his predecessors by becoming vice-patron, while the Charity Commission has twice intervened after complaints from hunters and farmers.

In a closely argued, six-page internal discussion paper leaked to The Times, the RSPCA’s deputy chairman, Paul Draycott, compares its prospects to those of the Light…

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